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Rep. Bob Inglis (R-S.C) became the third House member and the fifth member of Congress to be defeated this year, losing by an overwhelming margin Tuesday in a GOP primary that served as a referendum on Inglis’s conservative credentials.

In Tuesday’s other closely-watched House primary, Rep. Jim Matheson (D-Utah) won a commanding victory over Claudia Wright, a retired teacher and liberal activist who decided to wage a bid for the Salt Lake County-area seat after a coalition of progressives placed a Craigslist ad seeking a challenger to Matheson in response to his opposition to the health care reform bill.

After finishing a distant second in the June 8 primary, Inglis’s loss did not come as a surprise. Still, the margin of defeat was stunning: Spartanburg County Solicitor Trey Gowdy, who had slammed Inglis for his positions on everything from the Iraq war troop surge to drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in an effort to paint the congressman as insufficiently conservative, won 71 percent to Inglis’s 29 percent.

Gowdy outpolled the incumbent in all but five precincts in the district, even siphoning off support in Inglis’s home base of Greenville County.

Before the ballots had been cast Tuesday, many Republican operatives in Washington and South Carolina had written off the prospect of an Inglis victory, chalking up his seemingly inevitable loss to a combination of an anti-incumbent tide and local frustration with his departures from conservative orthodoxy.

The congressman’s loss came after a late effort to turn the tables on his opponent by challenging Gowdy’s conservative credentials and his support for a local earmark. Inglis also sought to insulate himself from the anti-incumbent mood of the conservative district and take advantage of his strongest asset — his authenticity — by presenting himself as a regular man, walking from home to home in search of votes and featuring his daughters in a campaign ad.

But Inglis’s maverick approach at times put him at odds with the Republican base in his deeply conservative district. As town halls raged last summer, Inglis came under glaring criticism from conservative activists after he told a room of angry town hall attendees to “turn off” Glenn Beck.

Inglis, who was in his second tour in the House, had acknowledged that he had rebranded himself as “Bob Inglis 2.0” — a Republican, he explained, who was more interested in finding “solutions” to problems.

If Tuesday night marked the end for one House incumbent, it also signaled the resilience of another. In Utah, where Matheson’s surprisingly narrow victory in the May state party convention suggested he was vulnerable to a challenge from the left, the incumbent won a decisive victory, taking more than two-thirds of the vote.

With 83 percent of the precincts reporting, Matheson led Wright by 68 percent to 32 percent.

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Readers' Comments (2)

The media keeps this "anti-incumbent" mantra going, but where is the factual proof, except in their minds? As Rachel Maddow showed, after researching this topic, thus far in 2010, incumbents have overwhelmingly won their races. So what's this about, other than "Media", once again trying to "create" the news instead of just reporting it.

America is sick and tired of the same old nonsense from our supposed representatives. Many people feel that the only person these representatives represent is THEMSELVES. Term limits for both parties this fall is in order.